Long delay before Grub starts

pauper · 2013-09-08 17:54:25

When booting my mediacentre there is a 9 or 10 second delay before the Starting Grub message appears, where nothing seems to be happening. While this occurs the screen output shows the pci device listing with the last item:
acpi controller.

This actually started happening about a year ago around the time I switched to systemd and then to grub from grub-legacy. As there were a lot of things to absorb at the time with those changes I let it slide, now I'd like to fix it but am not sure how to proceed. I know there was a point after partially moving over to systemd when I remember beng very impressed with boot times (6-7 seconds off an SSD) and this wasn't occuring.

I assume as this is happening before grub kicks in that there are no logs I would be able to consult. I have tried pulling out all usb devices and looking through the BIOS setup but I'm certain I didn't change any BIOS settings at the time this started happening. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-945GZM-S2 - can anyone offer any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

cfr · 2013-09-08 18:22:38

Have you checked the priority boot order in BIOS to ensure that grub is first? (Sounds like it might be taking time looking for something else first, maybe?)

pauper · 2013-09-08 19:00:29

Boot order has the SSD as first.

I also have a DVD drive and an internal Compact Flash to IDE adapter but all of this hardware predates the problem.

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-08 19:09:05

During that time, have you ever reinstalled grub to the boot sector? That is, have you run a grub-install so that the first 446bytes are rewritten? I am wondering if there is some kind of small corruption of the boot sector that is causing a struggle, but not total failure.

But you ar absolutely right, that these are the types of things that are the hardest to debug. I wonder though, if you have some sort of extra HDD or USB drive that you can boot to see if the problem persists. I think it would be a good idea to see if you can isolate the cause as being either attributed to the SSD or not. I guess even an optical disc to boot from would work, although an optical disc has an inherent delay while it spins up.

pauper · 2013-09-08 19:35:39

WonderWoofy wrote:

During that time, have you ever reinstalled grub to the boot sector? That is, have you run a grub-install so that the first 446bytes are rewritten? I am wondering if there is some kind of small corruption of the boot sector that is causing a struggle, but not total failure.

I'm almost certain I haven't

WonderWoofy wrote:

But you ar absolutely right, that these are the types of things that are the hardest to debug. I wonder though, if you have some sort of extra HDD or USB drive that you can boot to see if the problem persists. I think it would be a good idea to see if you can isolate the cause as being either attributed to the SSD or not. I guess even an optical disc to boot from would work, although an optical disc has an inherent delay while it spins up.

Good, idea, I should've thought of that. Booting Tails off a USB initially I thought it stalled less before grub but having timed it, its around the same delay: 8 seconds or so.

cfr · 2013-09-08 20:09:04

Have you reinstalled grub to disk recently? If grub was updated, you need to do this and not just generate a new configuration. Not doing so can cause non-fatal errors and I guess that might slow things down.

Do you get the same delay if you reboot on only on cold start?

pauper · 2013-09-08 21:59:08

cfr wrote:

Have you reinstalled grub to disk recently? If grub was updated, you need to do this and not just generate a new configuration. Not doing so can cause non-fatal errors and I guess that might slow things down.
Do you get the same delay if you reboot on only on cold start?

Yes, I get the same delay on rebooting. Given that the delay is present when booting from a USB device also wouldn't that rule out grub from the list of potential problems?

cfr · 2013-09-08 22:07:17

Yes, you'd think. I guess you changed the boot order for the USB boot?

pauper · 2013-09-08 22:16:45

Yes, I changed the boot order - so would it be correct to now say I should be confining my search for the solution to within the BIOS settings?

cfr · 2013-09-08 22:24:00

That would seem logical to me though I don't actually have much experience with this at all.

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-08 22:31:55

Maybe try resetting the bios? I don't really know what else to do in this case since the bios is not something that can really be debugged. Is there a bios update for your HW that you might be able to flash onto it?

cfr · 2013-09-08 22:36:58

Seems odd that it used to work fine if it is a bug in the BIOS. Maybe something just got set differently somehow?

pauper · 2013-09-08 22:58:28

Yes, its very weird I'm annoyed because I usually keep records on everything I change, and anything strange that comes up on my Arch system because I have such a bad memory but this thing I just let slide thinking it would be pretty easy to fix when I got to it and now I can't be entirely sure when it started but I think it was after moving from grub legacy. In fact I also remember when working through the wikis and guides to change over to systemd and grub that I encountered something saying there could be a delay in your boot due to something to do with the CD/DVD drive and there was a setting to change. I remember thinking thats probably what I have to change to fix the delay but now I can't find any mention of it.

Last edited by pauper (2013-09-08 23:00:54)

Pse · 2013-09-09 02:59:50

I've experienced similar behavior with faulty drives or flaky disk cables. Do you see anything odd in the logs? Look for "ATA", "error", "fail". Try unplugging-replugging all disks. I recently had to do that in my laptop. The disk somehow moved a bit and was causing the SATA link to get reset (which prevented GRUB from appearing right away).

pauper · 2013-09-10 05:03:18

That was the next thing I was mulling over Pse. So today I opened the case pulled everything out and reinserted it - I even tried leaving all other drive unplugged but still the same delay is there. I guess this will remain a mystery. Thanks for all of your suggestions.

WonderWoofy · 2013-09-10 05:36:27

Did you try actually switching cables?

pauper · 2013-09-10 19:19:29

WonderWoofy wrote:

Did you try actually switching cables?

I just tried that now, no difference. Oh well, I don't want to sound like one of those people obsessed with shaving milliseconds off their boot times, it just seems that at some point my boot time was more than doubled for no apparent reason and I just hoped one tweak somewhere could get rid of those 9 or 10 seconds idling. Thanks again.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-09-08 17:54:25

Long delay before Grub starts

#2 2013-09-08 18:22:38

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#3 2013-09-08 19:00:29

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#4 2013-09-08 19:09:05

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#5 2013-09-08 19:35:39

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#6 2013-09-08 20:09:04

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#7 2013-09-08 21:59:08

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#8 2013-09-08 22:07:17

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#9 2013-09-08 22:16:45

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#10 2013-09-08 22:24:00

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#11 2013-09-08 22:31:55

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#12 2013-09-08 22:36:58

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#13 2013-09-08 22:58:28

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#14 2013-09-09 02:59:50

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#15 2013-09-10 05:03:18

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#16 2013-09-10 05:36:27

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

#17 2013-09-10 19:19:29

Re: Long delay before Grub starts

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